


I'm So Sorry

by melchixr



Category: Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canonical Character Death, Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, Corpses, Gun Violence, Heavy Angst, Suicide, just so much angst, melchior finding moritz's body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-11-24
Packaged: 2018-09-01 23:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8642203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melchixr/pseuds/melchixr
Summary: “Moritz,” Melchior would reply in his childlike lisp. “Of course it’s not fair! If it were fair, we’d all be king. But the tree doesn’t have enough branches, does it?”
Moritz, who played in the roots and got dirt all over his face. Moritz who cried when he fell down the hill. Moritz who lost his socks every day. Moritz who lost his mind in the process of growing up.
Moritz, who Melchior could now see was the thing slumped over against the fallen tree.





	

He couldn’t think of another place on earth where Moritz could be. He promised Moritz last night that after he walked Wendla home, he would find him and they’d just sit together and talk like they used to do.

Frau Stiefel was blunt and angry when he arrived at their house, asking for Moritz. She said that he was gone, left just about an hour before sundown. She also said that Moritz had gotten is a fight with his father before he left.

“Were you aware that he was kicked out of school, Melchior?” She asked in a wicked tone. Melchior was suddenly very aware to why Moritz always elected to stay at the Gabor’s house instead of his own.

After the bluntness of Frau Stiefel’s tone wore off, Melchior still had to deal with the shock of the news he just heard. He knew Moritz had bad grades, probably on the account that he rarely listened in class and never successfully studied in his life. But kicked out of school bad? Didn’t it take time to be kicked out? He would have heard from Moritz of he was at risk of dropping out.

At least, he would have hoped that Moritz would have told him.

“No, ma’am….I wasn’t aware.”

Frau Stiefel scoffed and leaned against the door frame. “We found out this afternoon….We were hoping you’d know where he is.”

“I have no idea, ma’am….” Melchior said under his breath as the shock sunk in. He couldn’t imagine school without Moritz. He did all he could to help Moritz study and go as far as he could.

And why on earth didn’t he tell Melchior first?

It takes time to be kicked out of school, right?  It’s not like one day you’re in school, the next you aren’t. Surely, it took time. At least enough time for him to tell Melchior.

Maybe even enough time for Melchior to help him.

“We if you see him, tell him to get home this instant. His father and I are very very angry with him,” Her tone was bitter, almost infuriated as if Melchior had any say in the matter.

“I’m sure he already knows that, ma’am.”

But the door was slammed shut before anything else could be said.

Melchior wasn’t sure where to go. At first, it just felt like he was wandering, his mind rolling over and over with all the places Moritz could have possibly gone.  

The Gabor house was still as empty as it was when Melchior left it. His father and mother attending an evening mass. This was definitely the first place Moritz would have gone. The young man slowly moved to the back of the property, looking through the old barn they would play hide and seek in back in kindergarten. Part of him hoped that Moritz would just be hiding again and Melchior was just having trouble finding him.

Then to the pond behind the schoolhouse where they would skip rocks. They used to go there during the summer, stuff their socks into their boots and go wading in the cool shallows.

But in the dusk sunlight, Melchior could find no discarded socks or thrown aside shoe. No sign of Moritz or the times they had shared here.

As time crept on, Melchior’s search became more frantic. He stopped looking for exact locations and began to search anywhere he could get to. He had reached the point where he was just roaming the streets, calling out in a low hiss over and over “Moritz! Moritz please! Moritz!”

He felt as if he checked everywhere possible. And with every failed spot, he had felt some part of him crumple up and lose hope. The sun had been set for at least two hours now and his mother probably expected him home.

Let her expect. He reached the edge of the forest, where their simple cobblestone streets met tall, proud trees and lush grass. But now it was freezing with harsh wind rushing through Melchior’s curls as he entered and walked among the oaks.

Melchior knew that Moritz tended not to walk along the road, if he were anywhere in the woods, he’d be wandering along the river. Hopefully he was still by the river, his mind wandering to the memories of he and Melchi taking out little rafts they had made when they were children and trying to float downstream together.

Hopefully, he had lost track of time staring at the night sky. And Melchior would find him and call him an idiot for staying out so long but still pull him into a spine-crushing hug.

He prayed that would be the case as he shivered and continued his trek down the dirt path. The only light was that which came from the moon, filtered out by the leaves and branches above his head.

That’s why he wasn’t quite sure what he was seeing when he arrived at the clearing. It was much too dim to make out at first.

He recognized this clearing, a large path of grass with a large fallen pine in the middle of it. The needles and most branches had all fallen off and the bark had become soft over the years upon years of local children crawling and jumping around it. Melchior had come here often, sometimes to write in his journal, sometimes to let himself think. But before philosophy and ideas plagued his mind, he could recall coming here as a child. With big green eyes filled with hope, he’d climb up and play among the few strong branches that remained over the years, seeing how high up he could get before Ilse would scramble up after him and shove him down to the grass. Which was a massive fall when he was small, but now he was standing next to the branches he would play in and see that he was at eye level with the perch he would sit at and declare himself king.

Moritz would often call up to him from where he and Martha would play in the roots: “It’s not fair!” He’d cry. “Why do you get to be king?!”

“Moritz,” Melchior would reply in his childlike lisp. “Of course it’s not fair! If it were fair, we’d all be king. But the tree doesn’t have enough branches, does it?”

Then Georg would shove him off.

Moritz, who played in the roots and got dirt all over his face. Moritz who cried when he fell down the hill. Moritz who lost his socks every day. Moritz who lost his mind in the process of growing up.

Moritz, who Melchior could now see was the thing slumped over against the fallen tree.

He felt his heart stop as he took in the sight, bit by bit. Moritz’s pale face was tilted upwards, as if he were looking at the night sky. But his eyes were closed, and dark blood was splattered across his cheek and the right side of his face, matting his hair together as if if weren’t tangled enough.

“Moritz!” He called out, rushing to his best friend’s side one last time. A small spark inside of him still hoped that he would be alright. He hoped that Mortiz would open his eyes, explain that he had fallen over while on a walk and Melchior would carry him home to his mother and they would stay up the rest of the night taking care of him and laughing and drinking tea.

Then he saw the blood that had trickled down from his right temple, all the way down  his neck, staining his jacket and shirt, running down his sleeve and ending by his hand, which was still firmly wrapped around the small handgun Herr Stiefel owned.

“Moritz! Please Moritz! Wake up!” He cried out in vain, knowing full well what had happened. His mind was immediately flooded with thoughts.

He used to swim through his mind. Going with the flow and letting the current take him to new ideas, writing down everything he saw along the way.

But unlike before, when he could swim through his ideas, he felt as if he were drowning in his own mind. And the only words that could come out where, “I’m sorry, Moritz. I’m so so sorry.”

The flood began to pour out of his eyes, causing him to sob like a child, sitting on the cold ground next to his best friend’s body.

If only he had gotten to Moritz’s house a bit sooner.

“I’m sorry.”

If only he had told Moritz that he loved him.

“I’m sorry.”

If only he had helped

“I’m sorry”

He knew he could have helped.

But it was all useless now. He couldn’t stop anything from where he was, kneeling and cradling Moritz’s corpse gently, as if he were still alive.

He was cold, colder than the night air or the freezing winds. He was the coldest thing that Melchior had ever seen. But Melchior clung to him like he were a piece of driftwood at sea, holding his head to his chest and feeling the dark blood trickle onto his shirt and spread as if he had been shot too.

For a moment, Melchior looked at the discarded gun on the ground. For a split second, the image of taking the gun and putting it to his own temple ran through his mind.

If only he had been the one taking the bullet.

“I’m sorry, Moritz.”

Part of his expected for Moritz to open his eyes, calling Melchior an idiot for crying over him and then grab Melchior’s hand and drag him back home. But the still bleeding wound in his temple specified that it wouldn’t happen.

Not now.

Not ever.

Melchior didn’t let to though, not even as drops began to drip down onto his head and rain filled the skies above him. All of the memories of Moritz flooded his brain. Playing with Moritz in the puddles. Making tea with Moritz in the crowded kitchen of the Stiefel house as rain hits the windows. Pushing Moritz into the mud only to have Moritz pull him down on top of him.

Those memories meant nothing now.

“I’m so sorry, Moritz.”

**Author's Note:**

> lmao pain n suffering. this isn't like my usual fics so i hope it was good????? this was originally posted on my tumblr @likeinlxtin.


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